The story
History
DESIGNED on the lines of miniature cars which have created considerable interest in Europe and in Britain, a 200 cc. prototype, rear-engined three-wheeler has been produced by an East Oakleigh engineering firm.
The firm was Gray and Harper Pty Ltd, of North Road, East Oakleigh. Its prototype had a 197 cc Villiers two-stroke at the back, cruised at 40 to 48 km/h (25 to 30 mph), reached 64 km/h (40 mph) and gave about 50 mpg. It weighed 6 cwt (about 305 kg), and its makers meant to cut that to 4 cwt for more speed and about 65 mpg. They said it could be sold at £350 tax paid, and built to order at about 70 cars a year.source 1
G. N. Georgano’s encyclopaedia, as English Wikipedia’s list of microcars reports it, dates the Edith from 1953 to 1957 and says about 12 three-wheelers and four four-wheelers were made: low aluminium two-seaters with a rear engine, independent suspension on every wheel and four speeds, claimed to reach 93 km/h (58 mph) and to return 95 mpg.source 2 The two accounts do not sit easily together. A car in production from 1953 would hardly have been a prototype in 1955, and the figures in the newspaper are far more modest than Georgano’s; cybermotorcycle.com doubts that it entered production.source 1source 2
What we do not know
No photograph, dimensions, survivor or record of the firm’s later years has been found, nor who Gray and Harper were, nor why the car was called Edith. A file on Australia’s small-car industry among the papers of Laurence Hartnett at the University of Melbourne might say more; it has not been consulted.source 3
